Souma Girls
by Auditory Eden
Summary: It seems like all the wounds have healed. Arisa smiles.  A brief look into their lives fifteen years down the line. Mostly KurenoArisa, some KyoTooru, YukiMachi, KazumeSaki, etc. All canon.


Author: Auditory Eden

Rating: T

Warnings: Safety, angst, miscarriage, and tense confusion.

Notes: Because I'm on a Furuba kick and it's been a while. Plus there is _not nearly_ enough Arisa/Kureno fanfiction out there. I may cycle through tenses. They felt right in my head, that's all I'm saying. I may go back and clean it up later, but I'm rather inclined not to.

Souma Girls

It's been fifteen years since they all graduated high school and went their own ways. The three girls who'd once been closer than sisters were all cousins now, and one of them was even the step-mother-in-law of another.

That didn't change the closeness between Tooru and Saki, though, although they couldn't always meet and they certainly were very busy with their homes and their young families. Tooru's son and Saki's two daughters sometimes plagued their mothers, but that is, naturally, the precise function of young children.

And their third sister, the last corner of the triangle, though certainly not least. Arisa was no longer an Uotani, at least not in name. Like Tooru before her and Saki after her, she took the name Souma when she married the love of her life, Souma Kureno.

They live in a small, quiet town in the Chugoku region in the south. From there, the pair are about as far from the Souma estate in the Kanto province as Kyou and Tooru are, up north near Sapporo. It's the only reason Arisa is happy they're obligated to attend the New Year's festivities; her sisters-cum-cousins will be there too, and their husbands. She likes Kazuma, thinks he's good for Saki, but she actually misses Kyou and Yuki sometimes. More the carrot-top than the Prince, since Yuki had never been good for a satisfying row.

Arisa and Kureno have one very young daughter, only three years old. They'd tried for so long, but maybe it was him being stabbed, or her gang time and all the beatings and drugs that had entailed, but they couldn't seem to have a baby. She'd miscarried four times, and with Hanari they'd told themselves that it was the last time, the last try. If this baby died, clearly they weren't meant to have kids.

They'd still been terrified that something would go wrong, up until the moment Arisa held the tiny bundle and cried with relief and fatigue.

The little girl is asleep in her father's arms as they make their quiet way to the main hall of the compound. Hanari is wrapped up and adorable in a puff coat, because it's cold here and she's from the south. Arisa is tired and elegant, and Kureno is tall and clumsy and leaning just slightly on his wife because the cold climate is giving the site of his old wound grief.

Steam rises in the air from their breath and Kureno absorbs and savors the tranquility that he was raised in, then enslaved in, but still somehow misses. There is something about the tradition of the main house, the smell of the wood and the feel of the grass, that makes him nostalgic and calm, although the part of him that clung to Akito, the scared little girl, is on edge.

He shakes his head and smiles at Arisa, the woman who has made him happier than he ever thought he could be, especially considering she was in high school when they met, while he was four, nearly five years out of college. She grins at him and holds out a hand. He lifts Hanari slightly to indicate _Sorry, got a dead weight here_, and she smiles more softly.

Arisa had not wanted children. It was one of the only things she'd been adamant about when she began cohabitating with her boyfriend of a year. Five years later, when they'd mutually decided enough time had passed to warrant marriage, she had not changed her mind.

Then she'd gotten pregnant the first time. Between the throwing up and the dizziness and the absurd cravings for things she didn't even _like, _Arisa reaffirmed with herself that she didn't want kids. But at that first appointment with the doctor, Kureno sitting there with her, readying herself to ask for an abortion as they touched a cold ultrasound sensor to her as-of-yet unrounded stomach...She looked at the monitor when she was told and saw the tiny bean on the screen and looked at Kureno and thought, _That's our baby. It's ours, and it's the size of the first joint on my pinky and I already love it._ Her smile lit up the room and he squeezed her hand, alternating between staring at the monitor in awe and grinning at her.

"I changed my mind," she declares grumpily as they walk out of the clinic arm in arm, having failed to schedule, or even bring up the possibility of, an abortion. "I guess I want kids after all."

Three weeks later they are in the hospital, Arisa pale and unhappy as her husband holds her hand and they cry.

And again. And again. Their doctor grows a little wary of the couple, whenever they come back to her, Arisa pregnant and hoping against hope that this one will last nine months, or eight at least.

After the third miscarriage, she tells young Mrs Souma and her husband that they really ought to stop trying because at this rate a Arisa-san was going to sustain some kind of damage.

Just one more, they say. Then another after that. The last one, they'd said.

When Arisa had come in for her first appointment of the fifth month, her doctor had cried with her at the news that the baby was doing well; she'd never seen Mrs Souma for an appointment beyond the fourth month before.

The little girl was the beginning and end of their joys some days. Kureno worked six days a week, Arisa four, but only from home, and on the seventh day they often sat on the couch and simply embraced while their daughter ran about and played, keeping one lazy eye on her each.

Arisa missed the couch now, as they continued through the maze of the Souma estate. In ten years of being a Souma herself, she still couldn't find her way through the compound, and in the long run she suspected she never quite would. From the guest quarters to the main hall, she could navigate, albeit unsteadily. Anywhere else required map and compass, or her husband, who took turns with assurance and back ways without even contemplating.

At the edge of her hearing there were now sounds of life; talking, muffled laughter, all faint enough to be an auditory mirage. She sent a questioning look to her husband, who smiled and nodded.

Arisa grinned at him cheekily and took off running towards the light and noise, where her sisters waited for her...

Tooru hugs her fervently, and Saki joins in, and all three women are smiling and crying. Kureno is entering the room, and she smiles at him with watery eyes as he kneels and lays their little girl down on the cushions near Saki's youngest.

Soon it is time for the banquet, something anyone from inside the gate or out can come to now, zodiac or not because the curse is broken. Yuki and Hatsuharu would be dancing together this year, Tooru surmises, if the curse were still intact. Yuki, who is sitting next to Machi, smiles and laments his two left feet. Machi smiles at him in the low key, quiet way that she always behaves, and Arisa feels a wave of affection for her. There is so much she, Saki, Tooru and Machi share. They are almost like war wives, nursing husbands with scars from the curse. She remembers the first day Kureno woke up crying after a dream of flying, explaining in halting whispers some of the curse. The rest had trickled out over time, until Arisa knew the whole of it.

She didn't know how Saki and Machi had been informed, and suspected that she never would; she wasn't ever planning on sharing the broken tones in her husband's voice as he told her his tale, and the traumas that they'd been through could hardly have produced a confession in any other vein.

But little Machi, who isn't quite so little now as she used to be, round with seven month's worth of baby boy, had none of the familiarity that Saki and Arisa had. No support system for her discovery. Just her husband of two years, to cleave to or leave.

She'd stayed, and as Arisa looks around the table she thinks everyone might just have healed by now. Kureno is in soft conversation with Kazuma and Hatori, who sits with his wife, Shiraki Souma, née Mayuko. Akito and Shigure are sitting together at the head of the table, with Ayame and Mine nearby. Kisa and Hiro sit across from one another, and next to them respectively are Haru and Rin. Momiji and his girlfriend sit with Kagura and her husband. Down the table a bit are Ritsu and Mit-chan, Shigure's former editor.

Everyone is happy. The children—and goodness, are there a lot of little Soumas now—sit at their own table, creating havoc and laughter. Arisa grins to herself, then to her sisters, who smile back.

This is her family now. She's a Souma.

xXx

Parting Comments: Wow. Can anyone say "rambling"? I can! In fact I can do it, just read the fic above!

T_T

Yeah, it's one of those days. Still, glad I wrote it, we need more material for this ship!

Hugs and Kisses,

Eden


End file.
